For the past couple days Monsieur Holmes and I have been safe in Austin, following up on what few precious leads we have on the case.

We went to the G’Raj Mahal yesterday morning, and we asked the staff if they knew of a Melissa Glaser. Dieu merci, the cashier recognized her name and knew her as a loyal customer, but sadly they could not tell me where she was. As a loyal customer they only knew that the regularity of her visits was interrompu récemment; they heard vaguely that it was wedding, but of hers they could not say. We had little option, so we decided to part our ways again; Holmes would find the supplier of the staple gun, while I would wait to see if she would return to the G’Raj Mahal for a touch of café.

And indeed, dieu merci, today as I was, as you say, “on the verge” of giving up, I heard the name Melissa Glaser being called for a coffee drink called a cappucino (do not ask me what it is!). I was able to speak with her, but all too briefly; I asked if she was Melissa Glaser, and she said yes. I introduced myself and I asked her about a stolen painting and further the disappearance of Jack Vincent; upon hearing the name she seemed to grow a vehemence. She denied that she knew anything and quickly shuffled away onto the streets. Strange meeting I thought; but I noticed a useful detail. Around her finger was the mark of agitation from a recently worn ring, although there was no ring there. It makes me believe that Melissa Glaser was indeed the bride of this wedding, but that it might not be going well.

I have another matter to discuss. As a result of my cooperative venture with Monsieur Holmes, and the understanding that I will not pursue another case privately after I have ceased with Monsieur Holmes, that I should relocate my online activity to his blog, and that I should retire this site. It will not mean that I retire mon commentaire; far from it! In fact, I believe reading Holmes’ writing might just force my hand in writing even more – someone must keep that occasionally insufferable Englishman, as you say, “in check”. Beyond that, I make it easier on you. I would have him bring his commentary to my sight, but Holmes, beyond being a stiff cold man, can also be quite stubborn, so I believe it is best to volunteer. I will miss the website; it has done me a good service. Still, when the time has come to let something go for the sake of usefulness, I must let it go.

If you wish to follow me from now on (Dieu vous bénisse!) you may go to Holmes’ website, londontales.ezblog.co ; thank you for your wonderful devotion and I hope that it will not change.

Quelle semaine! After thorough professional analysis, the curator has been confirmed that the painting was un faux. Embarrassed, ashamed and confused, the curator and all his staff were fully cooperative with an investigation into this plot, as well as the disappearance of Jack Vincent.

Two important revelations have emerged: perhaps most essential, Information passed between the wife and the curator has confirmed that the man who showed up to the job of restoration painter was not Jack Vincent. This was the first time the museum ever used Monsieur Vincent; he was recommended to them (by this Cabal…?). As such the man who showed up claiming to be Jack Vincent they assumed to be Jack Vincent.

Further, the evening before the incident with the music the curator happened to walk in on our now unnamed restoration artist, ‘working’ with the portrait in question while it was removed from the frame. When the curator inquired why the portrait was removed from the frame, the painter informed that the detail of the portrait was such that it required he paint off frame on the edges to create the desired effect. When further asked why the painting materials weren’t out, the painter said he just finished and was about to put the painting back on the frame with its traditional weave. The curator observed the painting and noted it was sufficient for display, and wished for the painting to be framed as soon as possible, so he observed as the artist reattached the painting to the frame.

Ah, but I note, the painting we saw in the exhibit? Attached with staples! It was not the same painting that the curator saw the painter put onto the frame; the replacement took place after the painting had gone on display.

From this I posit our thief likely had to change his tactic; he used the time to create a detailed replica and he was about to replace it smoothly when the interference of the curator forced him to make the replacement in the exhibition as opposed to the studio. This music piece, perhaps prepared before as a gloating measure, was now essential. He used it to distract the guards for long enough to slice the weaves, remove the true painting and put in the replica, with only enough time to staple the forgery. These staples were matched to the staple gun the Holmes found in the gift shop; our thief likely moved into the gift shop to hide from the security, and perhaps to make his escape.

From here our information is fuzzy; but if you will remember I was attacked, knocked out and disposed of in the utility closet. Holmes has proposed a solution to this attacker that I find intriguing. He believes that our perpetrator, concerned about the integrity of the painting, had not properly prepared for its containment. But in the gift shop he noticed that there were tubes used to contain mid-sized and full-sized posters. Recognizing the usefulness, he perhaps took one of the tubes himself and placed a painting inside; but in the hazard of the moment he made a misplacement took the wrong tube! Under his false security he left, and only returned when he realized his mistake. Only when he returned, he recognized me and realized I could ruin his case. Wishing to subdue me, unwilling to eliminate me and under stress, he knocked me unconscious and placed me in the closet while he surveyed for the correct tube.

All that said, we are left with no lead for the fate of Jack Vincent, but that of the sticker for the G’Raj Majal in Austin, and this name Melissa Glaser. For this we will have to go to Austin – which we are to do, tomorrow.

Although – je dois avouer; I am curious about Holmes behavior; he has been distant and silent all day and has refused to speak to me. He just stares at the fireplace, smoking his pipe…

Many of you will be pleased to know that, without intention, I ran into Monsieur Holmes at the museum today; I thought perhaps he had come to see me, but then I hear that from him that he was pleased I had come to see him. It seems that not only do both our cases involve the art, but both of our cases center around the Denver Art Museum. We went to the cafe to discuss many subjects; I asked him – par la force, I might add -what had occurred to him back in New York that led me to take the train to Boston par moi-même. He recounted to me that he had an unnamed bienfaiteur of his own, not unlike mon Monsieur Administrateur, who had forbidden him to join me to Boston. He has since retained hesitations about the will of his own bienfaiteur but, since that same bienfaiteur led him to meet me, so in his mix of, I believe, a ‘benefit of doubt’ and his financial necessity, he has followed his benefactor to Denver. His explanation seemed plausible, and though I struggled to appease the original insult that I felt I was satisfied with his reply. An apology would have been met with appréciation.

He also described to me the details of his new case involving the disappearance of an artist who specialized in restoration painting, called Jack Vincent. He discovered that the man had apparently visited the museum to do his work but he was dismayed by the utter difference in the man’s behavior as described by his colleagues – far detached from the disappearance of the man’s wife. I described my own case to him, involving the piece of music that was played the prior Monday early morning.

Now, we both soon came to the conclusion that the cases were related and that perhaps our information was best shared à l’unisson. However, when it came to how we would work together, we found strong disagreement. He seemed rather unimpressed by my case (he was not the first) and felt our joint efforts were best served on his case of gravity. I angrily contested that this was not a case of gravity as such an act would have required much skill and conspiration, likely of a malevolent kind. And while I understood his own case was dire, with a soul on the line, I thought it would be best to focus on the lead of this tape and not chase a ghost where we do not know where it is! In great agitation we decided to leave our separate ways, and focus on our separate parts until – if and when – they lead us to a common case. In this spirit of, perhaps one would say, concours, I focused greatly on analyzing this tape today.

It is most strange; the song, it is complex, kinetic – frenetic, perhaps – but it appears to consist only of a male baritone vocal and piano accompaniment – perhaps it is another, perhaps the singer. He seemed to struggle at the higher parts, as if his piece was adapted for the voice of another – then again, at various points I confess there seemed to be some missing element in the background that would have completed it. Nevertheless the singer is amazingly talented.

The lyrics as well, I struggle to make out, since they are operatic, sung bombastically and not in my first language; however I have made some lyrics out.

“Serve the meal […] maid;

Serve the master […]

tables, plans and maids […]

[…] again!

[this part slows down; I make it out better]

[…] faithful friend

once again […].

Your young guest […] –

I, the master, you, the man

When you met you wore my cloak

[…] not have seen your face

She believes she dines with me

in her master’s […]

Furtively, we’ll […]

*Stealing what, in truth is mine*

When it’s late and […] with the wine

You come home! I […] voice

Slam the door like […]

I shall say, Come hide with me

[…] Of course my room

[…] chance

Here’s my hat, my cloak and (sod?)

Conquest is assured,

If I do not forget myself (in love?)”

Here it abruptly ends. The kinetic energy of the song finds only a single interruption at the point I have marked d’un astérisque. Having heard this line with the most clarity of any line, I find it disturbing. Our perpetrator is telling us something… ominous. If only I could know what it was…

If I have been silent for the past several days, pardonnez-moi. I have come down with a terrible influenza that kept me, as you say, ‘bed-ridden’ for a whole week in Boston. However I am back, en bonne sante. I have since left Boston; I had a misunderstanding of Monsieur Todd; his gratitude I took for mania, and when he ‘offered me a shave’ I mistook for a mad plot against my life. Though the matter was resolved later with the psychologist, it led me to conclude that I had settled everything I could in Boston and that I had to move on. Interestingly I was given a case by mon bienfaiteur that was quite odd and perhaps trivial but nevertheless interesting; he wanted me to go to the city of Denver, to the state of Colorado, to the Denver Museum of Art, where apparently at 3:00am the morning of Monday the overhead speakers broke out in a bizarre piece of music. Though perhaps trivial, he said this case could be very serious, and I need a new case, so gladly I accepted.

Only yesterday I arrive, and I visit the Museum of Art, and I find out that all the museum staff was completely docile as to occurrence; the security had no interest in looking into it further, regarding it some foolish prank, and the curator, Mr. Andrew Cushing, was so consumed with setting up his brand new exhibit, “Anonymous: Paintings of the Unknown”, that he’s given little thought to the occurrence. Granted, he gave me access to the tape today that was playing overhead in the museum as a concession, but to hear that there was an inspector on the case seemed to him excessive and unnecessary.

I await to listen to the tape; so far I am thoroughly annoyed with the casualness I am dealing wtih.

I have heard little of Monsieur Barker over the past several days, and naturally it worries me. I have little information to go off of, and no way of delivering it to the man in question.

Some of you had been asking about the letter; j’oblige;

It was appeared to be some sort of letter written in legal fashion; it describes a transaction that occurred between a Justice A. Turpin of the Crown, and a Mrs. N. Lovett regarding the custody of a young girl, Joanna Barker. According to the document, in return for a recompense of 30 pounds sterling, Mrs. N. Lovett would declare Joanna orphaned, pravulus desolo per parentis, and that she would not contest the right of Justice Turpin to take custody over the said child. I am not sure, however, how this information could help, or if it does; sadly it is written in the obtuse langue d’avocats.

To provide an brief update; I have unpacked my bags and I will not pack them until I prove once and for all that the wife of this Benjamin Barker or Sweeny Todd as he is also known is still alive! He is insistent; he has run away, harassed this psychoanalyst, and declares that he must know. So I will let him know! I am not sure how I will go about proving the existence of a woman in another time and place that is not even bound by our own history, but I will do my best!

Hercule Poirot

P.S. Here; out of the inquiry of Monsieur Sicon112, and by the permission of Monsieur Administrator I provide you of this recording of my meeting with this Benjamin Barker so that you may know what occurred.

I have in my own fashion solved the mystery of this ‘BB’, yet I do not how to explain it. So let me tell you what I know.

This ‘BB’ in truth goes by the name Benjamin Barker. By all appearances he is a quiet and reserved man, a hard worker, very keen to do his fair sure in services around the coop, particularly the garden and library. He has almost no record with the coop; by their account he has no family listed. He does not talk about his past; by reputation he rarely speaks of anything at all, but he seemed to have been warming up to his fellow residents more recently.

Yet in going to the coop, meeting with him, from what I have heard of him, from the details he has given me, it seems clear that his placement here in this time and place is as my own – a mysterious lifting from our own times to some alternate universe. Therefore what he told the psychoanalyst is true; he is, in truth, a serial murderer. However he committed them in his own time, refashioning himself in his malice as Sweeney Todd, in retaliation for his wife who was abused quite harshly in his absence and therefore attempted suicide. I say attempt, though he insisted that she actually committed suicide, but from the full description of his story I had my doubts about it. There were many inconsistencies that he neglected to address but he was angered at my suggestion; he left me in great distress over the notion that his wife could still be alive – or, let us more appropriately say, is alive in the time that he came from.

I will speak with the psychoanalyst shortly, thought I do not know what I will say. I have not decided what case to take on yet, but I am packing my bags.

I’m sorry that I have been late to post. I have much to report from Boston, Massachusetts.

Though I was relatively inactive at the Ball, I conversed casually and was able to enjoy myself; that was until I ran into the detective Sherlock Holmes again!! I found myself in quite a spot, arguing back and forth with the man, and I scarce think what the party goers thought of us (perhaps, even, un couple romantique!) Yet though he was clearly angry at me, and I at him, we had an opportunity to reconcile and, though there was not much we could discuss in the location, we decided on meeting at a particular cafe the next day.

Having solved the case of the Messieurs Hendrisckson and Morena, I was eager to go through a new mystery. I contacted mons bienfaiteur and I asked him which case of those I had received he wished me to solve. Luckily he chose one that I found most intriguing myself. It is a case in Boston, Massachusetts, and admittedly on description it seems a relatively simple case of observation, but there is some intrigue; the call was from a psychoanalyst who claimed her patient confessed to some murders, but sadly it was in a drunken rage and he would not give such a confession before the police; nor can she, for she is bound by the promise of confidentialité. Hercule Poirot takes all his work seriously. Besides, this man has done great work for me, and I am keen to return the favor.

After deciding upon the case, I met the man Holmes in the restaurant, and I found our discussion to be quite amiable. We agreed that our circumstances indicate that someone was playing a malicious ruse on us and that it was better for us therefore to join forces. He likewise expressed his own interest in my case. Delighted was I at his willingness to forgive my past indiscretions! He asked if he could join me to Boston, and I said as long as he could meet me in the train station I would agree.

Yet once again, with much frustration Holmes and I are separated once again; only this time it is without explanation. I waited in the Grand Central, waited and observed and waited, but he was nowhere to be found! And trains, they do not wait for the casual social encounter. If I had to be on time – and perish the day when Poirot is not on time! – I had to leave and immédiatement! As pleasantly modern as the new train ride was, I could not help but wonder if I should be insulted at Holmes’ rude disregard, or be frightened for something that may have happened to him. Fearful, I decided the only way to ease my mind was – quelle ironie – was to contemplate this potential tueur en série.

The client is a psychoanalyst person who wanted me to investigate a man that in confidentialité she calls “BB”. She says that this man is technically homeless but he lives on some sort of living arrangement that she calls a coop (like he is a chicken, I suppose?) inhabited by some political intellectual friends that are preferable to animals (appropriate, then, as they live in a coop). He has been seeing the psychoanalyst for his anger issues, but in the course of his therapy this BB confessed to many bloody murders. Nevertheless they have much reason to believe that this man is in reality psychotic and possibly with some sort of dark past that his psychosis is attempting to hide.

He contacted me in figuring out whether or not I was able to investigate and verify that this man suffers from delusion or whether he is a serial killer. Because I typically prefer solving conventional breaches of law rather than speculating about a man’s general innocence or guilt – that is poor practice for the little gray cells – I hesitated, but this Administrator was very keen that I should investigate. C’est la vie! I am here in Boston.

I will give you details about this man soon, but do tell me your theories.

I have the best of news to report; our case has been solved, Daniel and Esteban are safe, and the party will go on (although not quite as scheduled)!

It was exactly as I suspected; they found no bomb in their venue because there was no bomb in their venue – at least at the time that they were searching it. I expected this; the consistency with which their threat followed them each time they were planning the event, even after they changed venues, seemed to imply that the attacker was bringing a bomb to them on the day of the event rather than planting prior to the showing. Therefore I suspected that the attacker had to be one of the services that they were hiring.

I wanted to see which one of these services were behind the threat; however I didn’t want the attacker to be alerted; I wanted to make sure that he could be revealed, as you say, “red-handed”. So I told them to call each of the services and declare that they were cancelling their order, and specify that they were not doing so because they were postponing the event but because they were given a better promotional offer by a competitor, charging a nearly un-serviceable price. If the service had only monetary intentions, they would simply thank the couple for their service and hang up. But if the service was keen on delivering something else other than decorations or food, they would panic and attempt to offer an even lower price. And indeed, Daniel and Esteban made a call out to their local baker of cake – an Italian man called Enrico Vespucci – and when he was told that they had a promotional price for a newly opening shop, he desperately tried to get them to reconsider on the basis that he had already half prepared the cake, and eventually giving it to them for free as a one-time gift for their “special event.” With his offer, however, he revealed himself to be the culprit; he also revealed how it was going to be delivered to the party.

We had him deliver the cake early, seemingly because we needed to make sure it matched specifications, but truly because if some disaster happened it would not be in a crowded building. Enrico came with his cake, and he was greeted by police and a ‘bomb squad’ who quickly detained him and eliminated the threat. The police thanked me for my help in catching the culprit; I thanked them for their services and for my efforts I was allowed to speak with Enrico and understand his motive.

I hoped perhaps the man was not so outrageously cruel, that perhaps he had some motive beyond that which he found in his faith. I’m sorry to say that he had none. He was merely a bitter, angry man convinced it was his religious duty to attack this institution for their promotion of – I say it now – homosexuality (Daniel would wish me to be able to speak of it after all). What is worse is that the man is Catholic – I could scarcely believe it! He asked of me why a fellow man of God would help the unrighteous; I was quick to tell him that he was not my fellow and he was no man of God, for their is no righteousness in murder and lawlessness.

Perhaps I found the case simple to solve, but I learned more than the culprit; though inside I am truly conflicted about the sexual practices as Daniel and Esteban, speaking to them and being able to respond to their hospitality made me more able to judge a man’s good nature, not by how he makes love but by how he demonstrates it.

And while there is much more to say, I have been busy; the Messieurs Hendrickson and Morena have been forced to reschedule the party to Monday tomorrow. (Esteban did not think it so necessary to have the cake, but as I say, Daniel is obsessive with the details!) I myself am helping them send out the new invitations, making sure that all the special guests are invited…

I am making significant progress already on the case. I must say my heart has warmed very quickly to the sheer pomp of the planning; the catering, the decoration, the food – including this massive three-tiered cake! – I have reviewed every detail and I must say I am I can give very few clues, but I have decided to divert attention away from searching the premise and instead to the possibility that the weapon will be brought to the event…

Furthermore my hosts, Daniel and Esteban, have graciously invited me to attend the very party that I was hired to protect. Imagine me – Hercule Poirot at a Ball! Can you believe? Admittedly I do not know if I have the energy to attend, but I feel I must go to demonstrate my commitment to the case and safety of Daniel and Esteban.